Anna Ringstad is a newcomer to the world of fashion. She utilized her debut at Oslo Runway week to the fullest by daring to lean into her desires and fixations, as a result she became the most talked about designer in Norwegian media for weeks following the multi-day industry event. Adjectives accurately depicting her would be introspective and BUSY, which is exactly why I was pretty hyped when she was down to meet me for an interview. In classic Eastern European style I prepared some tea and pelmeni for my guest, and in regards the interview turned into a free flowing conversation that surpassed the questions I had prepared. Following the interview there was a conversation with my co-editor if we should make the article shorter in consideration of people’s fatigued attention spans, and the conclusion was that no, we don’t wish to cater to the growing illiteralism in our generation. Grab a cup of coffee, sit down, and let Ringstad’s mind inspire you to embrace, and perhaps employ your unique set of reference points.
Sophia Zhichkina: Let’s start with name, occupation, favorite number, dinosaurs or aliens.
Anna Ringstad: My name is Anna Ringstad. I work as a fashion designer based in both Paris and Oslo. My favorite number, I’d say is 47, because it feels right, and I think I’d go with aliens, but more in an emoji way.
SZ: You’re a Paris-based Slavic designer with a Norwegian surname, what’s all that about?
AR: Yeah, it’s a bit of a nomadic practice, the whole moving to Paris thing was quite intentional, because when you’re outside of Norway it’s somehow easier to grow fame there. At the same time it’s about not taking too much ownership of neither the Norwegian nor Russian heritage. In Paris, I’m a tourist, and I can’t take that same ownership of French culture, I’m just a fan. And then it’s also about expanding my reference and inspiration bank, where it’s not just about the country you’re living in, or the country you’re from, or your heritage. It’s for the sake of the collage.
SZ: Aaah because then you can take what you know, and what you’ve learned, and compare it to what you see, which now is Paris.
AR: I was curious to see what my perspective as a Scandinavian and Russian person in Paris would look like. I have this multicultural point of view that makes me filtrate everything I see in so many different ways. When you analyze and compare all the things you know to all the things you see, it’s like “does this remind me more of a Norwegian or a Russian reference?”. Maybe the Eastern European and French connect more on some levels. It all becomes this Venn diagram in three parts, and I guess the more references you have, the more interesting everything you do becomes as well, you can filter through multiple layers at the same time.
SZ: I saw on your Instagram that in general you don’t use capital letters.
AR: No.
SZ: So do you have a beef with them or what’s your relationship with the capital letters?
AR: It’s both an aesthetical choice and kind of not taking grammar into consideration. And also… I mean, it’s a super Gen Z thing to do. I’ve just turned off the capital letter function on my phone. I also use the comic sans font, and I feel like it looks better with the font. So it’s more of an aesthetic choice and also since it’s on social media, no one cares if the grammar is correct. I mean, when I write by hand, I only write in caps lock.
SZ: Really?
AR: Yeah, because that’s also an aesthetic thing since every letter then is the same height for sure. As a result you can write tighter and fit more words into one page. Thus when I write by hand, it looks super aggressive, and when I write on my phone, it’s like super, “I don’t care. I don’t even use capital letters.”
SZ: Congratulations on your Oslo runway show! Did it go the way you intended?
AR: Thank you. Actually, most of it turned out like I planned and wanted to. We had to rehearse so much on the choreography and the timing in regards to the set. The plan was that the choreography should look like it’s improvised which is a difficult duality to navigate, it becomes quite painful to watch when you see that “Ah shoot, they’ve been practicing this for so long and it still feels like we can see that we’re trying a thing”. I do feel like we managed to get the right distinction. It’s been so great working with Jonas Øren, a choreographer who really helped in putting it all together. Speaking of collages again, there’s so many components to a show, the music, the casting and the clothes, and all of it needs to become one unit for anything to make sense. If not, no one gets any of it and it just becomes like a clash, blur, blah thing. So the choreography was really important and it was so great that it turned out the way it did.
SZ: What were you trying to say through the choreography?
AR: The choreography is really linked to the casting, and I call them all performers, but non-models. Because they’re all actors, comedians, dancers, but their occupation isn’t modeling in the same way as everyone else on the runway schedule is. However, they know how to be on stage, they just don’t know how to walk a runway. I wanted them to develop this choreography together with Jonas that felt like it could be read as, “ah now I feel like I’m walking in heels for the first time and I’m really insecure” or like “you’re trying on something for the first time in a mall.” Whereas it shouldn’t be a mimicry or a mockery of those things, and the intention is not to make fun of the whole fashion thing where everything looks perfect. It’s more about portraying this stage of fashion, the stage of trying on clothes, or wearing them that no one really shows. Like when you’re trying on things in your bedroom before you go out the door. Instead of trying to make fun of it, it’s more about trying to portray this feeling and relationship we have with clothes.
SZ: So it’s not as ironic towards the fashion industry as it might come across?
AR: No, not really. I guess that it can be read in that way, but that wasn’t the initial intention. I don’t think that it’s interesting to create something, with the purpose of making fun of something else. It’s more about what it looks like trying to become the pretty girl before you leave the house, rather than making fun of the pretty girl.
SZ : Kind of showing the realness in the situation. Because sometimes it gets polished away, especially in the fashion world where everything is so perfect.
AR: Yeah, I think especially with the runway show setting. Not that I’ve been to that many shows myself either. I can imagine that for someone who goes to all the shows, when every show is perfect and polished, that it must become boring at some point. With the white walls, and the models walking up and down, just the same thing that seems to happen again and again.
SZ: I really liked your show because it was so chill. Just being able to watch the clothes and the performance while sipping on beer, coffee, or a drink for the fancier gals, was pretty relaxing.
AR: Yes, because it sounds awful to be like, “you’re supposed to watch the clothes and the show and enjoy yourself”, when in reality it feels like all those settings are so rigid that you in a sense feel like you are being watched as well. It must be so uncomfortable to try to enjoy a show while also being like, “now I need to look my best”.
SZ: Sounds like it puts a lot of pressure on people in the industry. What’s the post-show clarity state of mind?
AR: So strange because it feels like it was yesterday still, but it must have been over a week ago. Every day I feel like I should start thinking about what the post-clarity thing is. Because it feels like such a blur, what even happened? It’s almost like you freeze up a bit, and forget what to do next. Because up until the show, you have all of these tasks you need to finish that are super clear, like today i need to finish this dress, or talk to these people. These tasks are also non-negotiable, and there’s so many of them, but they need to be done. I have this situation going on right now where I’m either living in my studio or couch surfing, which is making me a bit disoriented. I’m currently walking around not knowing what’s left and right.
SZ: How long are you in Oslo?
AR: Until the end of September. So I’m here for two months.
SZ: Do you have a studio here?
AR: I’m subletting a studio at Romsås Sykehjem from another artist. Which is really nice, I wouldn’t have been able to manage all of this without a studio.
SZ: Do you think the post-show clarity would have been different if you were in Paris, at home?
AR: Yeah, for sure.
SZ: You haven’t landed yet, as we say in Norwegian.
AR: I don’t know, maybe I have landed. I feel really relieved and happy about the outcome. I didn’t expect or plan for it to get this much attention. There’s this thing when you put something out, whether it’s music, art or whatever, you lose control of how it’s going to be perceived. You can’t plan for what people’s likes and dislikes are.
SZ: What does Maintenance Melancholia mean, and how does the message shine through the clothes?
AR: To me, it’s a nostalgic or melancholic feeling towards this Eastern European way of maintaining beauty and being pretty, which is different from here in Norway. I got inspiration for this whole collection when I was at a residency in North Macedonia. The residency gathered some designers from the Balkans and Scandinavia, and since I’m half Russian, and half Norwegian I thought I would get along with everyone, and feel at home there. However the Balkan girls put so much time and energy into everything around their aesthetics and how they presented themselves. Before every event we went to, we would go to quite a lot of these cocktails at the embassy, they would go to the hairdresser for hours just to get a hairdo, and it was like push up bras, corsets, insane makeup and eyelashes. While we, the Scandinavians, didn’t wear bras or shave our armpits. I went through so many phases where at first I was like, gosh, I feel so sorry for them because they’re not liberated, blah, blah. But then I came to think that I’m not better than them. I shouldn’t feel bad for them because they have the same amount of free will as me. At some point I started admiring how much effort they put into all of it, and they were also doing it with the intention of people noticing the hard work. Whilst in Scandinavia, or even LA a bit, it’s like some botox here, and eating this much protein there, and the 28 step no makeup, makeup routine. It’s the same amount of maintenance and effort, but it’s in order for you not to see. So it’s a homage to doing everything on top of you, for people to see how much effort you put in.
SZ: Did you put some of the Balkan/Eastern European inspiration into your new collection? With some of the flower patterns for instance?
AR: Yes, I kept thinking, okay, if I’m portraying myself as a Balkan girl designer and then I see that in Scandinavia it’s currently really trendy with knits, crochet and the floral dresses. Then through her perspective you make this bullet point list of everything you need in order to be a Scandinavian babe. Where it’s almost like a WikiHow list, but even if the points are all correct, something still gets lost in translation, “yeah, they have floral prints, but it’s so off”.
SZ: That’s so funny. Wait, wait, that’s really great. I love that.
AR: I have this fabric plug in Paris, an old guy that only speaks French, and I barely speak French, but I tried showing him pictures of these oversaturated floral prints. He got back to me about three weeks later with all of these incredibly ugly floral prints.
SZ: What’s his name?
AR: I don’t know, Pierre or something. The fabric plug.
"It’s apophenia [...] all humans have this ability to see two different things and make a direct link between them."
SZ: You got exactly what you wanted. You come across as very deliberate, especially with your clever play on words and labels. Where does this word fascination come from?
AR: When I start a project, or when I’m in the research phase, I read and write a lot. When I sketch, I don’t really draw, instead I make this Amazon word cloud about what that garment is, and it’s like “sock heel shape, bustier bra, knit, crochet, lace up, corset, faux, etc., etc.”. I kind of think in a stock image word vocabulary way, and this process helps me understand what creative decisions I should be making. Maybe it’s also a bit of a meme brain approach, where I take in consideration how I communicate both process and product on social media, and it affects the way I design in like, “okay, this could be a funny insta story.” But that also implements how I talk about the clothes afterwards, and it becomes the same tone of voice. Maybe it all stems from being a lot online, as well as it’s both important and interesting to try to make this fashion thing a bit more accessible, or easier to understand, for someone that’s outside of the fashion bubble. In my experience when you have a witty tone around the clothes, it creates this hidden transaction where, if you’re in on the verbal joke, you get this feeling that the clothes are a bit for you. It’s a tactical thing as well as the work becomes more fun for me.
SZ: I’ve always wondered about how you come up with all these words, and why is it so funny to put all of them next to each other? It’s genius. I also just thought of another funny thing, the fan account you have.
AR: Yeah, I need to post more.
SZ: You’re behind your own fan account, and then you use it to create traction for your main account?
AR: When I made the fan account I wanted to make my own Demnagram. It has a different name now, but it was this fan account for Demna and his work, including his work at Balenciaga. So the account was used to explain everything from every collection, and every post would have paragraphs with information, like “here’s the tiny bracelet explained”. When I started posting those reels in Russian I was concerned no one would understand the context, at the same time it felt cringe to post an explanation for my inspiration on my main, therefore I made this fan account. Then it was portrayed as this person analyzing and researching the reel on their own to then explain it to the public.
SZ: What a meta way of explaining your work. It also piques an interest to actually read the paragraphs since it’s through this other account, instead of just under your reels or posts.
AR: I don’t think people really care about the details, and if I just had a super theoretically heavy website no one would go in and read it.
SZ: With the post-pandemic attention span? Yeah…I mean, I don’t think that’s gonna work. You make it more colorful and more palatable for people.
AR: That’s good to know, I mean it’s also more fun to write those explanations like that.
SZ: Does the identity of the brand occur organically or is it more well-crafted?
AR: I mean it’s well crafted and well considered and thought through, at least online. I just don’t know what to do with it in person. That’s why I use the sunglasses because then I can look like a character, and then I don’t need to consider what I say and how I perform. On social media it’s supposed to be this half mockery of the Karl Lagerfelds, Marc Jacobs, John Gallianos of the world, where you really bend down and look upon all these great designers as superstars. Which is a bit silly because all of those big names have such big teams behind them, and to applaud that one person is kind of ridiculous. It is quite funny and a bit stupid, when I’m portraying it like I’m this big designer brand while it’s also just me doing everything.
SZ: I see, but maybe you’re just manifesting a big team behind you in the future.
AR: I hope so. There’s also this super simple logic behind coolness, where it’s like if you say you’re cool people will start to believe it. Posting on Instagram, in a way, gives me the freedom to just be in my atelier in Paris, and work, instead of going out to network as much.
SZ: Yes, giving space for people to come up with who you are on their own. Staying mysterious can be very helpful, like nobody cares if you’re not leaving anything to the imagination. Do you leave anything to chance with the brand?
AR: I think I do leave a lot to chance. I don’t decide what I’m going to be inspired by, I just consume a lot of content and create samples at the same time. It’s apophenia, not the same as epiphany, but all humans have this ability to see two different things and make a direct link between them. Like when you see a cloud, and you see a dog and I see the face of somebody that I know. You link different things together based on what you have in your content bank of information. So in that sense I leave a lot to chance.
SZ: What part of fashion drew you in as a creator?
AR: When I was studying clothing and costume design at the art academy I viewed the fashion bubble with disgust, maybe because I was younger and more pretentious than now, I would think it was so frizzy and glossy. Frivolous. I was more into the art perspective where I wanted to make objects instead of clothes. It all started with me doing this bachelor art project where I would portray myself as a conceptual artist, and the concept was that I was going to be this fashion brand
SZ: And then it was fun after all?
AR: Yes, and then the ball started rolling, and I wanted to see how far I could push it. At some point I was able to get into this whole ecosystem of doing all the things I enjoy doing. Fashion says a lot about people and society, and there’s so many different semiotics and codes to it that I find interesting to work with. If I were to write a piece or make a sculpture I would still work around those thematics. So fashion is like a category of working creatively that feels natural to what I’m interested in.
SZ: So what was your first love creatively? Let’s say when you were a kid what did you love to make?
AR: My childhood was so much about crafts, but I never thought of it as something creative. That was just how I used to play. I remember my mom would grade my drawings, and my knit work.
SZ: No way. Wait, is she a teacher or something?
AR: No.
SZ: Just Russian?
AR: Just Russian, yeah. My aunt, who is her sister, used to visit us every summer with her suitcase full of yarn and beads, then that would be my summer.
SZ: You started knitting very early?
AR: Knitting, beading and sewing. I didn’t realize that that was something creative up until I attended the art academy, we were just playing with puzzles and having fun. When you’re 14 you think all those things are super embarrassing. So it took me a long time.
SZ: Yeah, I totally understand because as a kid those are old peoples activities.
AR: And it doesn’t feel like this, you know when you hear Galliano and all those big designers talk about “how I drew so many dresses when I was five, and here are all the sketches”, like I don’t really buy that.
SZ: That’s very interesting. I feel like maybe Russian moms do this thing where they give you the craziest education without realizing it. My mom did the same with books.
AR: Yeah right.
SZ: We read pretty advanced books when I was growing up, and today I still have these intellectual references because of my mom.
AR: And it’s like you got them for free. It’s something I wouldn’t have the discipline to do if I didn’t do it as a child.
SZ: Exactly, because the stuff I consume today is brain dead. It’s not the same so I’m very grateful. Props to your mom.
AR: Yeah no but same. Big ups.
SZ: What’s next?
AR: There’s a lot of fun things for when I go back to Paris. First I’m moving into a huge atelier, which is an old military farm. It has space for interns and production, and just everything. So that feels like a big step, up until now I’ve just been working in my tiny apartment. The entire collection was made in a 19 square meter space.
SZ: Oh my god.
AR: I’m really excited about that. I’m planning on putting some of the pieces from the collection into production, and doing this commercial thing so that I can live off of it. I also want to do an exhibition -like thing, based on the references and the thematics from the collection, in a retrospective way. I want to work with the same material, but make something that isn’t clothes, and then they can exist together.
SZ: What type of things, like a purse, or like a picture, or?
AR: I’m working on this sample collection now, with this double meaning of sample. I’ve sourced so many empty cd-cases.
SZ: Oh yeah, like a music sample.
AR: I’m gonna make textile samples that perfectly fit into a cd-case. Then I’m building this huge sample archive. Then I want to portray it in this old office setting, with an ugly desk, and cd-covers are gonna lie around everywhere. Then I have a whole super fixed system where all the cds are sorted by letters and numbers. While there’s gonna be this huge excel sheet on the computer where you can look up every letter and see what the sample is.
SZ: Is that the meta part for this collection?
AR: Maybe, either this collection or my work at large. I think it’s nice when it’s not that much about separating collections from each other.
SZ: Is there a continuation to everything you’ve done?
AR: Yes. I knew I had to create the collection, as well as plan and produce the show, all on my own. There were so many things I had to figure out “who was going to do the sound, what about the lighting, the guest list”, and so on. There have just been so many different aspects to manage. Because of that, there are also so many elements of the clothes that I want to continue exploring. I want to keep working on some of the pieces, and they probably will end up looking completely different. But it would still be the same collection, it almost feels like creating a 2.0 version of it. Maybe that could be fun, to then show it in Paris and have it feel like a collection tour almost.
SZ: Any last words
AR: Last words I don’t know, uhm, post show clarity is real.
Words
Sophia zhichkina
Photography
Bertine Momsen/ Edwin Hansen / Anna Ringstad